


war is a poem

by Lola _babygrxxt (babygrxxt)



Category: Larry Stylinson - Fandom, One Direction, WW2 AU - Fandom
Genre: A LOT of violence, Homophobic/Racist slurs, Letters, M/M, Metaphors, Poetry, Soldiers, Soulmates, TAGS ARE SPOILERS, harry is hopeless, it was 1943 come on guys, louis really loves him, nothing too graphic though, sergeant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 21:10:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2826215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babygrxxt/pseuds/Lola%20_babygrxxt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sergeant in World War II with gunpowder in his veins and blood on his hands is put in charge of a skinny seventeen year old boy who can barely pick up a gun. Everything is okay until it isn’t, because this is a big man’s fight, and armies aren’t particularly fond of people like them.<br/>Or<br/>An AU in which Louis is a man built for war. Harry isn’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	war is a poem

He lay in the grass, the sickly sweet scent of the flowers catching in the back of his throat, a cough lingering in his chest. The wool of his shirt scratched the careful skin in between his shoulder blades, and his trousers chafed his thighs. He knew he’d have marks from where his clothing dug into him, marks that wouldn’t get washed away until they returned to base, but at that moment, all he could think about was the damn stench of these flowers, and how he was glad he didn’t have hay fever like Jones behind him. Stupid man was sniffling every five seconds.

A rifle set in between his fingertips, he lined up his shot, as did the other men beside him. He was one of the only Brits on the specialist force; the Big Three themselves had called for him to be sent to New York with a backpack slung over his shoulder and his wide eyed innocence. That was two years ago now, and Churchill himself would be shocked if he arrived home in a box; he had became known on the force for his narrow escapes.

Silencer on and safety off, the German wading through the sea of red petals fell to the ground with a thump of finality, a low groan the only evidence he had been scathed at all. Immediately, his team turned around frantically, some of them moving towards their partner to help him back to base; those were the ones who fell next. The others, the one who ran, got another few seconds before they disappeared and were dragged back by Tomlinson’s unit.

They buried them crudely, mumbled a half hearted prayer, the Catholics the Sign of the Cross and moved on, a blank square of grass amongst the poppies.

*

When they returned to the barracks, not a soul asked of their excursions; they knew that, even if they did, it was a ‘if I tell you, I’ll have to kill you’ situation, and they preferred to leave those honours to the Germans. The only one Louis spoke of his activities to was the man who wrote his reports for him, Sergeant Liam James Payne, of Wisconsin.

He had met Liam on his first day in the States, when it was cold and their cheeks were flushed from winter. Liam had made him a cup of crude hot cocoa, and Louis had drunk it without much complaint, for it reminded him of home and maybe Liam was the only one who had been nice to him the entire time he’d been here and he was slightly confused over what was happening. His co-worker – or his friend, he supposed – had such a way with words, much nicer than Louis, and when they worked together, they made the reports sound more thorough and impressive than they probably should have.

Louis slid into the seat beside Liam during dinner that night, a piece of lumpy mashed potato and chicken on his tray, and mumbled, “Do me a favour, mate, okay? If I die, bring me back to Britain. I don’t wanna be one of those guys who get buried in Germany –- or even worse, the Union...”

Liam let out a laugh, strong and deep and masculine and everything a soldier should be, and wrapped his arm around Louis’ waist. “Well then, do me a favour mate,” he said, clanging their glasses together. The wine in Liam’s cup gushed around like blood. “Never stop being you, okay? You’re the best fucking guy in this place – the only one I can stand, mind you. They’re all so boring now – all whimpering ‘bout their dames leaving them and searching for paper to write on.”

“I have a dame to write to as well,” Louis pointed out, suddenly remembering that was something he had to do later that night, when Liam started snoring in his bunk. Liam rolled his eyes.

“Well, damn, so do I!” he exclaimed. “But you don’t see me going on and on about her, do you? And you and El... I never hear a fucking word ‘bout the two of you - if I hadn’t met her at the station I’d be inclined to say you were making her up!”

“Difference with you and me and the rest of them, bud,” Louis said, pouring some of the wine into his own glass, because orange juice after what he had just done? Really? “Is we’re hard-hearted.”

“Stone-cold...”

“Badass motherfuckers.”

“Toast to that!” Liam declared, clanging their glasses together again, much to the annoyance of the other men at the table, who winced at the noise. They were about three months into this batch, which meant that half those Louis had trained up twelve weeks ago were dead or jumping at loud bangs as if they were gunshots. It also meant that he had the enjoyment of a couple weeks break from missions in which he tortured the shit out of the new recruits to make them regret being enlisted.

He had to get his fun where he could, out here.

“Least it isn’t cold, yet,” Louis said, furrowing his eyebrows at the bitter taste of the alcohol. “Then we’d really hear some whining.”

“Think Soph’s gonna send me some socks, next month,” Liam mumbled, his eyes slightly glassy. Given their previous complaints about sentiment, Louis was inclined to believe it was the drunkenness causing it. “Though it takes a while for her to make them, and the fuckers at the office won’t send them through till they get all kinds of testing.”

He slugged down the rest of his drink, ignoring Louis’ protests that he wanted more of that.

“What are we gonna do, anyway?” his friend slurred, his strong fingers digging even more insistently into his side, that was already aching from the rebound of his rifle. “Shove some bombs down the embroidery? Fuck that.”

“Yeah, fuck that,” Louis said, hoping that Liam was spiffy enough to ignore his lack of conviction. “You might want her to send you some undergarments too, ‘less you want your cajoles froze off.”

Liam let out a loud laugh. “Oh Lou,” he shouted, making the men across the table thump their heads against the table with hands over their ears. “What would I do out here without you?”

“Live longer, probably,” Louis responded. His coat was hanging on the back of his chair, and although it was still wet from the grass, it was the only one he had. He stood up from his seat and began to put it on, even though Liam was grabbing onto his trousers and begging him to stay.

“I need to go see the Big Cheese, mate,” Louis said, prying his friend’s hands off him. “And write to the broad – don’t want her dumping me over the seas, do we?”

“You go back to your room and put on the Ritz, Lou,” Liam said, hiccupping in between chuckles. “And if she’s sent you some of those there photographs, we’re friends, aren’t we?”

“She won’t have sent me photographs, Liam,” Louis said, feeling slightly uncomfortable at the mere notion. “But if she has, you’d be the first I’d help out.”

“Thanks mate. She’s got good gams on her, that girl.”

“You’re free to her, if you want,” Louis said, patting Liam on the back. The other boy punched the air in triumph, and Louis wondered if he was drunk enough to forget this. After remembering both of them would probably be dead within a couple months, so none of this even mattered anyways, he made his way out of the dining hall to the office where the boss resided.

His boss was a stern looking man by the name of Danny Edison. He always had a thick line of wrinkles on his forehead and was usually flanked by two pretty blonde nurses by the names of Olivia and Rosie, who seemed to enjoy Louis’ visits more and more with each passing day. That night, though, neither of them were there, and Edison was sitting over yellowed paper labelled confidential.

“I ran out of ink for my stamp,” Edison said tiredly, holding it up for Louis to look. It was stained red, but the word ‘deceased’ was easy to read despite the ink. “Have to wait three days for another batch to be flown in. That is if it’s not shot down by the fucking Russians.”

The man let out a long, drawn out groan.

“Here’s some advice for you, son,” he said, whilst Louis stood slightly awkwardly in front of his decaying wooden desk. “Never become a general. If they offer you a promotion right now, you just say no, you understand me?”

Edison lifted up some of the sheets off his desk, not seeming to care that most of the manila case files fell open and were right in Louis’ perceptive view.

“We won the last one, didn’t we, Tomlinson?” he asked. When Louis realised this wasn’t rhetorical, he nodded his head. Edison sighed. “Sorry, I just had to check. You know what they say in ‘Merica, don’t you?”

Louis shook his head. “I’m from Britain, sir,” he reminded him.

“Yes, son, I know that,” Edison ran a hand through his short, greasy grey hair. “They say we can’t win them all. I’m beginning to think this war is the same thing.”

Louis had never been one for staying silent or restraining himself, so he couldn’t stop from spitting out, “Where’s the nurses, sir?”

“In the nursing place,” he replied.

“The hospital,” Louis offered.

“That’s the one.”

(Louis wondered if he was the only completely sober one in this whole goddamn barrack.)

“There are a lot of big men dying in this war, Tomlinson,” Edison said weightily. “And what do they send me? Wimps. Not a single one of these recruits taller than my shoulder.”

He took the file from his boss and flicked through. True, they were small, but they were also young. Very young. All the same age.

“What did they do to find them?” Louis asked, shocked. “Raid a school?”

“Have to, now,” Edison explained. “There’s a few in there with good grades in sport. A few rugby players, might have some potential. And a few old soldiers’ sons; their daddies died in the first one, so they’ll have spunk to win this one. But then there’s the utterly hopeless ones. They’ll die on the plane ride here, probably. Hopefully.”

He knew what Edison meant, even if it sounded harsh. He meant that it would be easier for them to do that, than to stare into the eyes of the enemy and feel their life’s blood draining out of them, or be blown apart by a grenade.

Louis’ eyes lingered on one case file in particular. The boy – Harry – was only seventeen, barely old enough to marry, and he had a large ‘F’ beside the sporting activities on his report card. His father had died when he was three – not from war, but influenza – and his mother was a humble waitress in a restaurant. A photograph, small and ripped, fell from the back of the file into Louis’ hands. It was crumpled, and he was still wearing a uniform. He had a smile, the brightest goddamn smile Louis had ever seen, and big green eyes.

He didn’t stand a chance.

The soldier swallowed thickly and closed the case file as quickly as his hands would allow. He passed it back over to Edison, who looked more exhausted than Louis had seen a human being before, and that was saying a lot, for his mother had seven children back home. Seven siblings he needed to survive for. Seven siblings his pay-check had to pay for. If he died out here, they all did.

“They come in a few days,” Edison said harshly into a handkerchief as if he was holding back tears. “You can have them off to prepare for – prepare for training, if you want.”

“Thank you sir,” Louis said, although that wasn’t what he wanted to say at all. “I’ll start tomorrow. I just need to write a letter to my missus first.”

“Oh yes,” Edison said, motioning with his hand for Louis to leave immediately. “I must do that as well. I’ll see you in a few days, Tomlinson.”

“See you then, Sir.”

*

_~~Dear~~ _ _ELEANOR,_

_I’m writing on a piece of old napkin, because I’m not sure I have the energy tonight to find a proper page (I hope you don’t take that offensively – I do not mean to offend, although I probably do quite frequently)._

_The war is going well, I believe. As well as a war can go. Although_ (CENSORED) _– you’ll remember him, from the gala those months ago? – seems to be wavering on the line of self doubt, disbelief in his troops. I’m trying to keep my unit’s spirits up, but it’s hard._

 _I buried several_ (CENSORED) _in a poppy field outside_ (CENSORED) _. I know I’m not supposed to tell you about this, but I know the only ones who shall read this letter is you and my family, and certainly they will not share it with the Nazis. I just felt so bad about it, and I’m not sure why. Perhaps it was the stench of the flowers messing with my mind. Perhaps it was because I didn’t feel bad about killing them in the first place (you must think I’m a terrible person, but this is war, Eleanor, and you cannot judge me until you’re crawling through the bushes with a rifle in your hand and sand in your heart)._

 _Sergeant_ (CENSORED) _of my division was asking after you. I told him you were well. I hope you don’t mind, but even if you weren’t well ~~I wouldn’t know. Most of your letters go unread.~~ I would tell him that you are. Isn’t that what your governess always told you? Politeness goes before honesty._

_How is Mother? She isn’t working too hard, is she? Is my pay check going far enough? Does Felicity have her new shoes? Does Doris have her medicine? Does Ernest miss his brother? Does he even remember he had a brother?_

_I hope you are telling him about me. I hope you are spending time with my family instead of that boy on 2 nd Street I know you have your eye on and won’t dare to tell me. ~~But I don’t mind, really. You were never mine to claim.~~_

_Please send everyone my dearest wishes. I hope this war is over soon so I can have some of Mother’s famous cake – she better have some ready for me, with all this blood on my hands. And don’t let Charlotte worry over me; tell her that I can take care of myself, more than she knows, and I pray for her every night ~~if He still listens to me with all I have done.~~_

_YOURS SINCERELY,_

_SERGEANT LOUIS TOMLINSON._

*

It was early 1943 when Louis stood in front of his fourth batch of new recruits, all of them trembling in their uniforms, some grinning wildly, some quaking in their boots, some almost crying from missing their families. Louis was filled with an irrepressible need to beat the last of those to the ground and knock the sentiment out of them, but to do that would be against army policy, so he held back.

He sneered at the men, the squirming mewl who looked at him with a mixture of fear and unending respect for his position, and he felt the familiar power soak up through him. He liked being the one in control, the one who everybody looked up to; it had been his role his entire life, to take care of his mother and his sisters and to never let anybody harm them. Hell, before Liam, he had never even trusted anyone enough to befriend them; the world was a tough place, and it would beat you to your knees if you let it. Louis wasn’t going to let it.

“Right men, boys, girls, whatever you are,” Louis called out against the light wind. They were standing in the middle of a training field roughly constructed by those still too injured to go back onto the frontline. It wasn’t state of the art by any stretch of the imagination, but then, war wasn’t state of the art. You didn’t know a damn thing until you’re standing there, staring into the barrel of a gun. “You have come here today because you want to serve your country.”

“I thought I came because I was forced to,” came a yell from the line-up, and a light chuckle emanated from the recruits. Louis himself forced a smile onto his face, and with swiftness, he threw a heavy bag of equipment into the arms of the boy who had called out the quip. He had brown, young eyes.

“You’re not here to make jokes, boy,” Louis spat, mere inches from his face. “What’s your name?”

“Z – Zayn Malik, sir,” he replied immediately. Those who had laughed at him went silent now, all watching Louis, with a muscle in his jaw twitching.

“Sounds foreign,” he commented. “You foreign, Malik?”

“Pakistani, sir,” the boy replied, his voice wavering only slightly. “But you’re not American either, are you?”

Louis just grinned, stepping back from Malik and glancing along the others with harsh contempt.

“This is war, men,” he declared. “And I don’t care what you’ve told your missus or the stories you’ve heard from your daddies or how much your mummies miss you. This is war. One man dies, he is hailed a hero, no matter what the fuck he’s done before then. If he was your worst enemy in the barracks, you better goddamn help him up if he gets shot. He punches you in the face, you punch the German who threatens him. He snores in the middle of the night, you shoot the enemy in the eyes for putting him in their sights.”

He paused briefly, taking a moment to imprint the boys’ shocked faces into his mind, because this might just be the last time he sees them.

“This is war,” Louis yelled. “You’re all standing there, thinking that you can fight for only one person, thinking you can fight to stay alive and just get home. I can see it in your eyes, and believe me, there’s no one here who doesn’t want this war to end. But this is war. And we’re all each other’s got, now. The people at home; they’re another world. This is all we have. This is all you have. And goddamnit, if you don’t try to protect these men with every fibre of your being, if you don’t get shot for someone at least once during your time here, I might be personally obliged to pass you over to Hitler himself.”

Louis felt his own chest reduce about three sizes. It was everything he had wanted to write in his letters but had never been able to do so, never been able to deal with the fact that everything would be censored anyways, cut out with a pair of scissors and discarded on the floor of some dusty warehouse in the backstreets of London.

“Now, men,” he said, glancing round at them once more. “With that in mind, let’s begin training.”

His eyes only briefly caught the sight of the curly haired boy he’d seen in the manila file as the lads marched hesitantly towards the equipment.

*

After two hours of training, Louis could only come to one conclusion: Harry Edward Styles was going to get himself killed within the first five minutes. Seriously, he wouldn’t be able to hold a rifle straight if there was an auto-correct function on it.

He kept forgetting to put the silencer on. When he tried to do the climbing wall, Louis had to clamber up and untie him five times because he kept getting tangled. When Harry crawled through the grasses with a rifle in his arms, he ended up jamming the barrel with mud, and ripping his only uniform against the barbed wire. He didn’t prepare for the rebound and ended up getting thrown backwards ten times.

Louis actually began to wonder if he was _trying_ to do this, because no person in human history had failed so royally, even on their first day. Hell even Malik was doing pretty goddamn well, despite the fact that he wasn’t fond of shooting pigeons because they’re “living things too” and he was an Asian, for God’s sake.

“Thanks for helping me,” a bedraggled Harry mumbled to Louis as he pressed ice to his forehead and a nurse tended to the cuts on his back from the wire. He was just as attractive as he had been in his photograph, and all of the nurses on the force seemed to recognise this, as well as the secretaries and really _any_ female within five miles of him. He was magnetic, cataclysmic; an utter fucking nightmare.

“It’s not a problem,” Louis replied, trying to keep his eyes locked on the younger boy’s, but it was hard; he seemed to be staring into his soul, stirring up something inside his stomach, something Louis hadn’t felt since the summer of 1928... “It’s my job, after all.”

“Yeah, but I bet you haven’t had someone so utterly hopeless as me,” Harry muttered. He winced as the nurse wiped a cloth over his cuts, and then thanked her when she apologised. He was always thanking people; always careful to remain polite. Louis’ mother would say he was raised right, was still being raised right, really. He was only seventeen, but so _beautiful_.

“Of course we have,” Louis lied fluently. “Hell, when I was being trained one of the guys shot our instructor in the foot. Least you haven’t done that yet.”

“You say yet,” Harry laughed breathlessly. His laugh sounded like a baby’s breath, and Louis suddenly wanted to hear it again. Wanted to hear it forever, really. “Admit it. I’m hopeless.”

“Anyone can win this war,” Louis said. “It’s not about being fast, or strong.”

“No, but those things help,” Harry muttered. “Just hope the asthma doesn’t flare up.”

“You have asthma?” the nurse exclaimed, just when Louis was about to go into an impassioned rant about how persistence was the key to a soldier, not strength. Harry suddenly started wringing his hands.

“What’s the problem with that?” Louis asked, feeling rather dense. For a reason he didn’t quite know yet, his brain felt like it was stuffed with cotton wool.

“He should never have even been accepted!” the nurse declared, furrowing her eyebrows together in Harry’s direction. He was staring at the ground now, refusing to look her in the eye. “What are you going to do if you have an attack out here and I’m not there to help?”

“I d – I don’t know,” Harry admitted. He appeared so utterly devastated that Louis felt his heart flip over and die in his chest.

“Can you give us a moment, please, Nurse?” Louis asked, and she scrutinised Harry once more before nodding.

“Of course, Sergeant,” she replied. “I don’t think those cuts need bandages anyways. They should heal up before you ship out. If you need anything else...”

“We won’t hesitate to call you,” Louis said smoothly, shooting her one of his patented Tomlinson smiles. She left with dimples in her cheeks and a slight blush, probably off to gossip with the other girls about the beauty of Harry’s eyes or the shapeliness of Louis’ ass (because yes, he had overheard them talking about him, and yes, he was suitably astounded by their vulgar tongues. Who knew dames used words like those?).

“You realise lying on your draft is an offence, right?” Louis said, trying not to show that he was actually finding the whole thing a bit comical. This scrawny, gangly legged, utterly left footed seventeen year old student had _lied_ to get into this big man’s war. Did he seriously expect to make it more than a day here?

“I realise that,” Harry whispered, picking at a rag nail on his thumb. Louis resisted the urge to place his hand upon his and stop the nervous habit.

“Then why did you do it, Ha – Styles.”

“Because I have a death wish,” Harry said, with a bit of a manic breathless laugh. Louis raised an eyebrow.

“What’s the real reason?” he asked, sincerely hoping that he had read the younger boy correctly. It turns out that he had, because Harry glanced upwards, his green-grey eyes wide with honesty.

“I have a friend back home,” Harry said. Louis couldn’t take his eyes off his lips. “Niall. I’ve known him all my life, you know? We moved in together when we were sixteen years old, when his parents died. Bombing raid. Anyways – he got pneumonia a couple winters ago, and it just keeps coming back. I’m trying to keep him alive being here. The money I get – it’ll buy him proper medicine. He needs that.”

Louis paused for a moment, licking out over his lips. “So you’re going to die so he can live,” he said simply, bluntly. “Are you trying to be poetic or just stupid?”

“Believe me, I know I’m not a perfect soldier,” Harry replied, settling the ice pack down on his lap. “But this is one of the only options I had. And besides... if I do die out here, you said it yourself. I’ll be a hero. Back home, I’d die of an asthma attack and go down in the town history as that nerd who fell over the neighbour’s cat when he was sixteen years old and broke a rib. I don’t want that.”

“What I said,” Louis said, shaking his head, “wasn’t meant to be taken literally.”

“Then why did you say it?”

“Because I’ve been out here for two years, Harry!” he exclaimed, suddenly standing up so he was looking down at the younger boy instead of the other way around. “I’ve seen so many horrible things, lost so many people, made so many bad decisions that you couldn’t even hope to understand. And when I was talking this morning – it was out of anger, okay, it was a letter I never sent.”

Harry nodded, perfectly calmly, and the fact that he wasn’t screaming back at Louis in that moment drove the sergeant quite insane.

“Why didn’t you send it?” he asked instead, sounding mildly curious, a dimple popping in his cheek. Louis wasn’t even aware he had liked dimples before meeting Harry – now, he found that people couldn’t possibly be considered attractive unless they had them.

“I had no one to send it to,” Louis settled on.

“If we knew each other before all this,” Harry began.

“We don’t know each other now,” Louis cut in.

“Imagine that we did. If we knew each other before, would you have sent me the letter?”

A sharp pain dug in through Louis’ rib cage like a knife.

What he didn’t say: _If we knew each other before, I would’ve made you my dame._

What he did say: “Perhaps.”

*

8 o’clock that night, and instead of sleeping getting ready for the next day, Louis was up sewing together the ripped back of a uniform that was far too long to be his own. Liam flopped over on his bunk and scrutinised his friend deeply for a moment.

“Who’s is that?” he asked lowly, trying not to wake the other two sergeants who shared their room.

“Nobody’s,” Louis replied, a bit too defensively. “Just one of the new recruits. A bit of a fuck-up, really. I felt sorry for him.”

Liam let out a grunt of surprise. “Never saw you feeling this sorry for a new ‘un before,” he observed, his voice deep and thick with sleep. “Actually, don’t think I’ve ever seen you sew. You sure you know how, Tommo?”

“Course I know how,” he snapped, as he pricked his finger hard with the pin. “Can’t be that hard, can it?”

A sigh. “Just don’t get blood on the uniform,” Liam said, flipping back over on his bed. “It’ll be a long time before a launder’s.”

“God, don’t I know it.”

*

11.57 and Louis crept into the bunker in which the recruits slept, hoping to God none of them were awake. Thankfully, they were exhausted from the day, and those who weren’t had already cried themselves to sleep long ago. Louis remembered the days he did things like that, remembered the times when he cried for everyone, even Eleanor, for he knew he was being unfair to her. Now, he can’t remember the last time he cried.

“Harry,” he hissed, standing above the other boy’s bed, trying not to take in the way his eyelashes cast shadows upon his porcelain skin, the perfect pout of his sleeping lips, the curve of his nose on his face. “Harry, wake up.”

“Go ‘way Ni,” Harry muttered through the darkness. “Don’t wanna go just yet.”

“Well you have to, you big lump, get up,” Louis whisper-shouted, rocking the younger boy’s back, a hand pressed into his mouth to stop him from yelling out when he finally woke. It only took a couple of seconds and a finger shaped bruise to emerge on his face before Harry’s eyes fluttered open, briefly trusting then confused, then some kind of indescribable emotion Louis didn’t think he’d seen directed at him before.

“Sarge?” Harry mouthed, eyebrows furrowed. “Is this a dream?”

“No, you oaf, get up,” Louis said, leaving the boy’s side and grabbing his boots. He threw them at Harry’s chest the moment he sat up on the bed, and then went back, the uniform gripped tightly in his plastered hands.

“My uniform,” Harry muttered, eyes sparkling as he took it back from Louis. Their hands briefly touched, and Louis felt fireworks go right up through his veins, burning up every cell in his body so they could do nothing but chant Harry Harry Harry in their deafening chorus. “You got it fixed.”

“Yeah, well,” Louis stuttered, not quite used to the amount of gratitude displayed in Harry’s movements towards him. “It was no big deal.”

“You did it yourself, Sarge, didn’t you,” he said, grinning (that fucker). Louis’ eyes widened.

“No, no – not exactly...”

“You definitely did! Your hands are all pricked.”

“That’s from when I had to help some dumbass out from under the barbed wire.”

“Don’t be mean,” Harry muttered. “Or maybe, do. Some people are into that.”

“Are you one of them?” (Why the holy _fuck_ did he just ask that?)

Harry grinned. “Perhaps.”

Louis shook his head, hoping that would erase some of the fogginess that had clouded his judgement. It didn’t.

“Whatever, Styles,” he snapped. His eyes drifted behind Harry to the table by his bedside. There was a flash of colour highlighted by the moonlight, and he immediately scrambled over the bed and grabbed it, pushing Harry off him when he tried to object.

“Will you shut up?” Louis whispered harshly, but there was a wide smile on his face. “You’re going to get us both caught, you dumbass.”

“’m not the one who came into my room in the middle of the night!” Harry replied, frowning. “And give me back that, it’s personal...”

“I’m your commanding officer, Styles,” Louis smirked. He looked down at the pages on his lap. They looked something like cartoons. “Captain America?”

“Well, yeah,” Harry said. His face was bright red now, and he was rubbing at the back of his neck. “He’s a good guy, you know.”

“He’s a superhero,” Louis replied, quite astounded. This boy – this seventeen year old asthmatic boy with a pneumonia-suffering friend and a death wish – could’ve brought anything in the limited confines of the army’s baggage. He could’ve brought photographs of his family, of the friend he was determined to protect, of the girls he must have waiting for his return. Instead, he brought fucking _comic books._

“Well yeah – um – um –yeah,” he stuttered.

“You brought fucking comic books to a _war_ , Styles?” Louis said, hitting the front cover lightly. “What age are you, five?”

This time, Harry did look offended. Whilst Louis’ guard was down he snatched the comics back and shoved them under his bed.

“I’m not _five,”_ he whined.

“You sound like you are,” Louis said, and he suddenly felt like the meanest person on the block, the kind of boys he always hated in school because they used to pick on the little guys in alleyways. Now, he was picking on the little guy in a fucking barrack. “Sorry...”

“No, it’s fine,” Harry snapped, the first time Louis had heard any venom whatsoever in his tone. His eyes were watering. “Thanks for the uniform, Sergeant. I hope you don’t mind but I’d really like to get some sleep for the morning. Not that it’ll make me any better, but I can hope.”

Louis opened his mouth to try and say something, try to make it better, but Harry had already turned over to his side and was feigning sleep.

He pretended not to hear the whimpers as he left the bedroom. He also pretended that he wasn’t the worst goddamn person ever to exist on this earth, and that’s including Hitler.

Least Hitler hadn’t made Harry cry.

*

Louis realised the next day why the comic books made him so mad.

Bright colours and hope didn’t belong amongst the black of petrol bombs and the brown of the rifles. They should’ve been muted by the dust hanging in the air and the almost sepia tone that seemed to dot the corners of Louis’ vision nowadays, when he came to the sudden suspicion that this day would be written about in history books a hundred years from now (well, not this day in particular – nobody would remember the second day he spent in Harry’s company the way he would, they’d just look at it impartially, from a long way away).

Bright colours that shouldn’t have been there, but were. Kind of like Harry himself, really.

He was all geared up for apologising that day when he stepped out of the barracks and made his way across the dying grass. He was all up for being sincere and perhaps even acting sensible for the first time in his life because goddamnit he’d never felt like he’d kicked a lost puppy more in his life, when he saw a sight that made him quite nauseous.

There was a gathering in the middle of the recruits, a circle, and Louis could already tell who would be in the middle. He moved over to the group silently, using all of his training as a sniper to remain undetected, and it was easier than he thought it would be; the boys were utterly oblivious to his presence, all busy laughing at the boy in the middle.

“Look at the communist, boys!” one of the bigger ones jeered. Louis pushed his way through into the circle, and quickly ran his eyes over the recruits; Malik was nowhere to be found, he was probably still asleep. “Says he thinks we’re all equal. The Germans aren’t that bad, he said.”

“Nazi!” another declared, his arms flailing around. “Betcha he’s a Nazi!”

“Nah, he’s just a queer, ain’t he?” a particularly mean boy smirked. “Saw you looking at Jimmy over there a while too long...”

Jimmy shuddered. “Don’t want no fags in this army, do we boys?”

Even though it was Harry who had obviously gotten punched quite a few times, it felt to Louis as if _his_ stomach was knotting into fifty; he couldn’t do anything, he just watched, paralysed, as they battered each other and Harry around. It was senseless, absolutely senseless.

“Eh, Nancy boy? You don’t fight back where you’re from?”

“Whatcha gonna do when the Nazis come for you, pretty boy? Whatcha gonna do then?”

“Bet your mama’s proud, raising a faggot...”

Something snapped inside Louis, and he immediately burst through the group in front of Harry.

A boom like thunder echoed right inside his skull, and then, in almost the same instant, his ears began ringing, as loudly as the impact from the big guy’s fist. In half a second, he could feel his face beginning to swell up, could feel himself begin to fall over. His legs were watery, like he was standing on a beach filled with viscous sand, but he forced himself to straighten up and stare the boy hard in the eyes.

The big guy – Fredrick, that was his name – looked about ready to shit his pants. The rest of the group had already scattered, and Zayn had run up. He was crouching down behind Louis, helping Harry up from the ground. Louis wiped the blood off his lip.

Anger bubbling throughout him, he struck Fredrick right in his stupid, ugly nose.

“This is the army, lad,” Louis said, before spitting in his face. “You hurt one of your own, you’re the monster. Now get the fuck outta my sight before I give you a reason to go home crying to your mama.”

Fredrick nodded hurriedly, clutching at his bloody nose, and began to dash towards the barracks, stumbling as he went. Louis usually would’ve laughed at the expression on his face, but right now he was too busy stretching his jaw out.

That fucking hurt.

“Oh my God,” Harry mumbled, pulling his arm away from Zayn’s stabling one, despite the dark haired boy’s protests. “Sarge...”

“It’s fine,” Louis said, even though it really wasn’t. How was he going to shoot straight when one of his eyes was swelling up? “I’ve dealt with worse, out here. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine,” Harry said, and Louis had the distinct impression he was lying. He was more beat up than Louis could imagine someone could be, and there was still the finger shaped purple marking around the boy’s lips. “Thanks, Sarge, really...”

“It’s no problem,” Louis repeated, stepping forward. He was too close to Harry now, and he knew it, for Zayn was looking at them both with concern. But the boy smelt beautiful, sort of like the perfume his mother sprayed on the letters she sent occasionally when she could afford the postage. He didn’t smell like those blasted poppies. “I actually came over to apologise to you. You know...”

Harry raised an eyebrow.

“For last night,” Louis finished lamely. “I was a bit of a dick to you, and I’m sorry.”

“To be honest,” Harry said with a laugh, which must’ve hurt, because he winced minutely afterwards. “It’s not the worst thing that’s happened to me whilst I’ve been here. But thanks.”

“You know,” Louis mumbled, knowing that he would regret what he was about to say but significantly not caring. “I could help you out. With your fighting and stuff. If you want. It just needs practice, really, and I’m really good at shooting things...”

Harry smiled weakly. “Thanks Sarge,” he said. “But if I’m seen getting special treatment I think a black eye is the least I’ll have to worry about.”

“Nobody will know,” Louis said. “Apart from Malik, but he’s a good egg, ain’t you, Malik?”

Zayn nodded hurriedly. Harry looked as if he was actually considering his offer.

“You’d really do that for me?” Harry asked, his eyes wide and sparkling and God, he was so beautiful Louis found himself swallowing whilst he nodded.

“But only if you do something for me,” he replied.

“Anything,” Harry said.

Louis smiled. “Read those Captain America comics to me sometime, okay?”

A grin came to Harry’s face, and Louis was so glad he didn’t tell him what he usually ordered crap recruits; “Learn faster or die trying.”

*

“He can’t even lift up a gun without grunting,” Liam said with disdain, watching Zayn bid goodbye to Harry as the sun disappeared into the sleeping sky. “I’m not sure exactly what you’re trying to do here, Louis, but it’s not going to work.”

“Oh ye of little faith,” Louis announced, although he was feeling a familiar twinge of truth at Liam’s statement. “He’s got it in him. The kid’s got spunk.”

Liam raised an eyebrow. “Really?” he asked, disbelieving. “Because I certainly haven’t seen it. Kid’s barely said a word to any of the higher ups part from thank you.”

“I’m not just going to let him go out there and kill himself, Liam,” Louis sighed, hoisting up a couple rifles onto his shoulder.

“God knows you’ve done it before,” Liam said. “We all have. You can’t make everybody into a soldier, Louis, you know that. There’s a certain thing it needs...”

“Persistence,” Louis cut in. “That’s all it needs.”

“You only have two weeks,” Liam pointed out. “Persistence takes up time we don’t exactly have.”

“Didn’t you say the other night I was the best sergeant you’ve come across?”

“I think I said you were an _alright_ sergeant at best, Tomlinson, don’t get it twisted.”

Louis rolled his eyes. “Whatever. I’m willing to spend however long I need to get this guy battle ready. He is just a boy, Liam, and he has a mother to go home to.”

Liam considered Louis for a little longer than was normal.

“Sometimes I really don’t understand you, Louis.”

“That’s okay Liam. You don’t have to,” he replied fiercely, before stomping off to catch up with a grinning and red faced Harry.

“I brought comics #1, #2 and #3 tonight, if you want them,” Harry said, lifting up the books to show him. They were just as bright that night as they were the last. Louis smiled at him, and reached over to take the comics.

“Thanks, Styles,” he said, putting the books into his bag. “Although I thought the agreement was _you’d_ read them to me.”

Harry went even redder, if that was possible.

“We... we d-did n-n sssh...”

Louis laughed.

“It’s okay, bud,” he said, patting Harry on the shoulder (he retracted his arm quickly when his skin began to tingle from the contact). “You don’t have to if you don’t want.”

“What if I do want to though, Sarge?” Harry asked, and goddamnit, was he looking up at Louis through those gorgeous eyelashes of his? “What then?”

Louis swallowed thickly. “Why don’t you go warm up,” he suggested rather than answering, because Harry was beautiful and there was an envelope in his back pocket that was digging into his thigh. “I have a package to open.”

“From the one you couldn’t talk to, I suppose?” Harry murmured, but when Louis didn’t respond, he conceded and went over to the middle of the field. He dropped to the ground and began doing – trying to do – press-ups. Poor guy couldn’t get an inch off the ground.

Louis shook his head, took the letter and parcel out of his back pocket, and sat down on a rickety wooden bench.

The letter was short and sweet, and the package was wrapped in cheap brown paper, the type that reminded him of Christmas. Louis smelt the envelope before he opened it, and yes, it was sickeningly sweet.

_Light them up, Sarge. I won’t mind – Eleanor._

A slight smirk twisting onto his features, Louis set the envelope to the side and began to un-wrap the package, only noticing out of the corner of his eye that Harry had ceased trying to exercise and was making his way towards him, wiping sweaty hands on the thighs of his trousers.

It was a packet of Marlboros, the cigarettes his old school buddies would call ‘lady smokes’, and there was writing on the back apologising for the lack of a lighter. For a brief moment, Louis felt a surge of affection for his oldest acquaintance for possibly the first time since they began kissing.

“You smoke, Sarge?” Harry said, dimples shallow in his cheeks. Louis nodded, flicking the packet open, grateful that he still had Liam’s old lighter in the bottom of his pocket along with little pieces of lint. He set fire to the end of the cigarette and placed it in the corner of his mouth, smoking quickly through one, then another, before setting a third onto his chapped lips and allowing the vapour to blow out slowly.

“I haven’t for absolute months,” Louis said, breathing out heavily, the nicotine bubbling in his veins. “Been so fucking long, I swear. She’s a saint, an absolute saint. God, I missed smoking.”

“I’ve never been able to smoke,” Harry said, collapsing down onto the mud in front of Louis. Although Louis was sitting on a bench and Harry the ground, they were almost at the same eye level. “First time I tried, I near coughed up a lung in a back alley someplace in Yorkshire. Not trying that again, that’s for sure.”

“I’ve been smoking since thirteen,” Louis mumbled. “When Father - when he left.”

“Sorry,” Harry said, and he actually sounded like he meant it.

“Don’t be.”

“My dad – he left as well,” Harry said, eyebrows furrowed slightly adorably. “Not in the same way, of course. But I still miss him. Was pretty mad at him too, though I felt bad for that.”

“Not his fault he died,” Louis pointed out. “But we’re not even supposed to be talking about this. We need to get you ready for...”

“We’ve got all night,” Harry said, so fluently Louis imagined he’d said this to people many times before. He began to wonder if anybody had ever seen him bare and flushed against the white of sheets, heard his moans – fuck. “What’s your first name, Sarge? Or is that need to know?”

“Definitely,” Louis responded, slightly strained. He sincerely hoped he wasn’t as red as he thought he was. “You don’t need to know, Styles.”

“But you know _my_ first name,” he whined. Louis rolled his eyes, and settled back into the bench – he had always been told by Liam he had this way about him, that he could mould into his surroundings and just disappear. Made work as a sniper significantly easier, made education a whole lot harder.

“Can I ask you something?” Harry said, and he was looking at Louis as if he was going to whatever the response, and that was what Louis said. “I’m going to take that as a yes.”

“What do you want, Harry?”

“What do you get out of being so high up?” the boy asked, green eyes staring into Louis’ own, rattling his bones. “I mean, you fight so goddamn hard, you give your all to the army, and I don’t even get the notion you’re sure you believe in it all.”

Louis swallowed once, thickly, before answering. “I know what I _don’t_ believe in,” he began carefully. “And that’s Nazism.”

What he doesn’t tell the gorgeous barely legal boy in front of him is that war is his drug, and boy, is he addicted. It’s the adrenalin he thinks, the pumping in his veins and the ringing in his ears, the power that comes from being the one to save life and take it away.

Maybe that made him a monster. Maybe it made him a good soldier. Or maybe, the two weren’t that far away from each other in this war.

“I mean, that’s an alright answer and all,” Harry muttered, taking off his boots and beginning to rub at his ankle. It was obvious from the way the bone stuck out he had damaged it many times in the past. “But I still don’t get why I’m fighting amongst Americans when the both of us are British.”

“Because we’re Allies, Harry,” Louis snaps, this time harshly, not able to hide his annoyance at the boy for being so fucking beautiful. Really, did he have to have such a strong jaw line as well as impeccable features? “That’s what Allies do. They fight together. They win wars. And you –“

He paused, searching for a word.

“You really need to shut up, Styles, because that mouth of yours is getting you nowhere.”

“Oh, believe me,” Harry said, not looking chastised in the slightest, much to Louis’ irritation. “It’s got me plenty of places before now, Sarge.”

Now that could be added to the list of things he would really be safer not knowing.

*

_Two weeks later._

“I want him on my team.”

There was a clash of a cup hitting against a cheap office desk, and the sound of Liam protesting immensely to the proposal. Then there was Danny Edison leaning over his paperwork, Rosie scuttling over to pick up the coffee before it stained the files, and Louis looking sternly and determinately into his boss’ cold, calculating eyes, eyes that had seen their fair share of horrors and who were ultimately expecting to witness more as a result of this suggestion.

“You realise the boy is hopeless, don’t you?” Edison asked, not condescending like Liam was when Louis mentioned it the other night over dinner, but somewhere in that zone. “You realise if I lifted my middle finger to him he’d probably cry?”

“I realise that,” Louis said, sucking in his lip. “But I still want him. I think he has potential.”

Liam hit his head against the wall, screaming out, “Potential!” in a disbelieving and utterly exasperated tone. Edison squinted his eyes in Louis’ direction, probably wondering if the sergeant in front of him was losing his fucking mind. Perhaps he was. Perhaps that was what two weeks of time with Harry Styles would do to you. Perhaps it was the best Louis had ever felt in his life. Perhaps.

“As a sniper,” Edison murmured, for confirmation. Louis nodded solemnly.

“It’s safer than him being on the front line,” he pointed out. Liam let out a bitter, manic laugh.

“There we go now!” he exclaimed. “There’s the reason for all this! Tomlinson’s gone soft on the boy, that’s what it is, and he’s trying to save his ass!”

“Will you kindly stop running your mouth, Sergeant, before I dismiss you,” Edison demanded sharply, making Liam fold his arms crossly and fall into one of the uncomfortable office seats. The boss glanced back at Louis, his lips pursed. “Is this the reason, Tomlinson?” he asked.

“No,” Louis replied, far too quickly to be genuine.

The new recruits had gone out to their first battle only three days ago. A couple of them died, a few were wounded, but the majority went well, not pausing when faced with danger, not going AWOL, not crying for their mothers when the Germans taunted them.

And then there was Harry. Harry, who was only alive by the grace of God.

Louis still remembered the anger in his every movement, the way he grabbed the boy by his upper arms and shook him harshly in the middle of a field, a Nazi lying in between them, a hole in between his eyes.

“What the fuck, Harry?” Louis had spat, his eyes wide and terrified. Harry’s were just the same, and he was trembling, but that might’ve been a result of the shaking (either that or the fact that he had just seen a man being shot mere metres from him). “He was right in fucking front of you! Can you not shoot a Nazi if your life depended on it?”

“I didn’t know if he was a Nazi!” Harry had protested, as if it was the most sensible thing in the world. Louis just stared at him, baffled, and pointed with both hands to the body on the ground.

“If it’s dead and it’s German, it’s a Nazi!” he yelled, shaking Harry once more for good measure, even though he knew fine and rightly that he would have to save the boy’s life yet another time that day; he counted seven men he had killed so far just for putting Harry in their sights.

“No,” Louis repeated to Edison, calmer this time, more controlled. “You always told me that every man can be a soldier. Well, I think I’ve found the exception.”

“You certainly have,” Edison said, raising his eyebrows as he flicked through Harry’s case file for the fifth time that weekend alone. “You know, if we weren’t in the middle of World War 2 right now, I’d be inclined to do the lad a favour and discharge him.”

“But we can’t do that,” Louis said hurriedly. Liam looked at him like, ‘What the fuck man?’ and he immediately averted his gaze back to Edison. “We can’t be seen turning away our own men, for God’s sake! Think what that would do for morale back home, boss. Whereas if you gave me some time with him ... put him in my unit ... I could train him up, make him actually good, get a sniper out of him.”

“And you honestly think he could hit someone with a rifle?” Liam asked. He was being very negative about the whole thing, and Louis wanted to blame him for it, he really did, it was just that he couldn’t.

“Of course,” Louis said with mock confidence. “With the right sergeant.”

“You’re the right sergeant, aren’t you, Tomlinson?” Edison said, smirking slightly. Louis was convinced that he was Edison’s favourite; it was probably the only reason why he was getting away with this blatant disregard for the older man’s authority.

He grinned, a piece of hair flopping down onto his forehead. He usually wore it slicked back with gel or sweat if he couldn’t find any, but then Harry made a passing comment one day about how it made the blue of his eyes pop more and, long story short, he was wearing it like this every day now.

“I won’t let you down sir,” Louis promised. “And neither will he.”

“I hope not,” Edison said. “Liam, you go find him and send him to my office. Louis, you go get a room for him sorted out in your unit’s barracks – I suppose you’ll want to bunk with him, if you’ll be training together?”

“That would be amazing sir,” Louis replied. Liam faked puking just out of Edison’s gaze, and Louis shot him a glare that demanded he stop before the boss saw and started asking questions.

The second Louis got back to his room, he had to mute the sounds of his girlish screams of excitement with the thin pillow.

Twenty four hours a day with Harry.

 _Harry_.

*

Life was always a blur in the army. Between coordinating attacks, getting troops together, organising specialist units, training, gathering recruits... Louis barely had time to breathe, even before he met Harry. Now he was working on, at the most, two hours sleep considering him and Harry couldn’t just _fall asleep_ when they got into their room at night.

They talked about _everything_ in the darkness of the night, from how much the sun weighed to how people knew they were in love. Louis told Harry all about his childhood, how his father was the first person who brought him hunting and taught him how to line up a shot, and in return Harry described how he and his best friend Niall wreaked havoc on the shopkeepers of England and all about the forgotten train station they had deemed their fort when they were five.

It took a few days for the boys to realise that it was much easier to talk when Harry was beside Louis in his bed rather than in the top bunk, and then a few mornings in which they woke up tangled in each other’s arms like tree branches for them to discover that maybe sleeping with each other helped keep the nightmares of war at bay and the feeling of loneliness that threatened to creep in with the frost on the windows. And Louis was all about making the new guys feel a bit more at home, so he took Harry in his arms without needing much persuasion.

Harry had little freckles on his shoulders. The covers clung almost desperately to his skin, highlighting every curve and crevice on him, and Louis might’ve spent far too long at night admiring the way that his body moved when he slept, the deep rattle that went through his bones each time he breathed, the pure beauty of his living cells.

Louis had wanted to kiss people before. Hell, he’d even wanted to kiss a few guys before, if he allowed himself to admit it. But with Harry... he wanted to drag his lips slowly across every inch of him, taste every part of him, even the insignificant sections, like where his hips met his stomach and his neck met his jaw and his ear met his head. Every piece of him was perfection.

“As the ruthless war-mongers of Europe focus their eyes on a peace-loving America, the youth of our country heed the call to arm for defence...”

He read in a sleepy tone, deep and thick with tiredness but still punctuating in just the right places, and it thrilled Louis right to his centre. It sent little electrical impulses when Harry accidentally brushed his hand, when they were pressed up against each other in the small single bunk, when they were touching everywhere but the places that mattered.

“So he was the little guy before all the super-hero stuff, then?” Louis said one night, their lips barely drifting each other. It was a Wednesday, and they were close enough that if somebody saw them they would be ‘honourably’ discharged, but Louis found himself not caring.

He didn’t care. Harry was warm and homely and God.

“Yeah,” Harry said, smiling, as bright and as big as the sun. He made Louis feel as if he was a kid again, as if he was still revelling over that pretty girl asking to borrow his pencil. Except now he was here with Harry, and he was infinitely prettier than that girl had been, and he smelt better too. Not like perfume, but more like skin and sweat and gunpowder. All the things Louis loved. “Guess that’s why I like him so much.”

“He’s a good guy, too,” Louis murmured, burying his head into the crook of Harry’s neck. They fit together so perfectly, like puzzle pieces. Or twins, perhaps. “I think I understand why you brought them, now.”

“Yeah?” Harry muttered.

“Yeah,” Louis said. “They spell out hope.”

“You think we still have hope,” Harry asked slowly, a child clasping onto straws, “Do you think _I_ still have hope.”

“Of course you do, Harry,” Louis whispered softly. “I’ll not let anybody hurt you, you know that.”

“You’re kind of like the Bucky to my Captain America.”

“Isn’t he in love with Steve?”

Harry moved back from Louis so he could look him straight in the eye. Louis whimpered from the loss of heat.

“What?” Harry said, and Louis stopped protesting, noticing the breathless way in which he said it. He raised an eyebrow, and crawled a bit closer to Harry.

“Well, I mean, it’s obvious, isn’t it?” Louis said, suddenly stumbling over words, regretting mentioning anything. “They’ve known each other their whole lives, would give up everything for each other, would die for each other ... Sounds like what love means to me.”

“Do you have a dame, Sarge?” Harry asked lowly after a few moments of silence. He was lying down now, and he motioned for Louis to do the same. The bruise from the day before was still shining against the paleness of his skin. Louis swallowed thickly, hoping that none of the other men would come into their room at that moment – it would be hard to explain their proximity.

“I have someone to write to, yea,” Louis replied diplomatically, not understanding how they got onto this. Harry’s smile faltered, but only minutely; he wouldn’t have noticed had he not have been watching him so intently anyways.

“Oh,” Harry muttered. “Wh - what’s her name?”

“Eleanor,” Louis said. “Childhood friend.”

“Are you... courting her?”

“Perhaps you could call it that. After this...” Louis inhaled sharply. “I’ll probably return back to Yorkshire and make her my wife.”

“That’s the way life works, innit,” Harry said, still looking at Louis, still with eyes shining.

Louis sighed. “For us at least, yeah,” he responded.

“Do you love her?”

“I like her,” he said slowly. “She can cook well.”

“She’s pretty?” Harry murmured.

“Very pretty,” he confirmed.

“But you don’t love her.”

“She’s missing something,” Louis admitted. A shallow dimple appeared in Harry’s cheek.

“Are you a” – Harry paused – “a queer, Sarge?”

Louis felt as if a grenade had landed right in that tent and blown him to shreds. He felt as if Harry had picked up the rifle in between them and shot him in the chest. He felt as if he was falling from a plane without a parachute, paralysed.

“Yeah,” he replied eventually, when his oesophagus opened up enough to allow him to speak. He was choking. “Yeah, I am.”

“Thank God!” Harry exclaimed, with a breathless and almost relieved laugh. “Thought I was the only one in this goddamn army.”

He didn’t think he could be faulted for kissing him then, hot and breathless, until he forgot where they were, forgot the bombs exploding miles away and the war waging just outside their window.

Harry’s hand was cupping his face, and Louis’ arms were resting on his perfect, steady hips. Harry was all lean and bronzed and fucking beautiful, and their tongues in each others’ mouths and he tasted so goddamn amazing and the tang of the cigarettes tingled on their lips.

“We shouldn’t be doing this, Sarge,” Harry whispered breathily when they pulled apart, and Louis immediately pulled him in again by the curls at the nape of his neck (Harry let out a low groan. Louis registered that for later).

“Call me Louis,” he replied, smiling more than he had for years.

*

_Dear Sergeant Tomlinson,_

_I feel bad doing this, especially when you are so far away, but it is something that has to be done. I hope you can understand at some time. Louis, I don’t know how long this war might last, and I need to be happy during the years. Do you understand? I sincerely hope you do._

_Before I get down to the nitty gritty of the purpose of this letter, I’d like you to amuse me for a few seconds and remember the summer of 1928. We were ten years old, you remember, and we skipped stones on the river outside your house. You taught me it was all in the flick of my wrist, the stance of my feet, the determination in my eyes. You taught me a lot in all your twenty five years, Louis, and I love you for that._

_You remember 1935? The year my father died. You were seventeen years old and buzzing with anticipation – wearing a green beret on your head and a gun settled in your too small hands. You were too young to be leaving me, Louis, and you know that as well as I do. You moved too quickly through the ranks. You left me too fast. The childlike eagerness in your eyes – I searched for it at the funeral, craved it. You always reminded me of my father when you had it reflected in your irises – but by the time he was dead, it was gone from you too._

_I suppose the world lost its sparkle after the first one. I wonder if we can ever go back, if we can ever apologise to that lost generation. I wonder, Louis, will this one have an even bigger list of casualties? Will you be one of them?_

_You follow me into my dreams every night, Louis. When I close my eyes, you’re there, in a box, a flag draped over the wood and a soldier beside it, tipping his hat and apologising, but I never hear him because you’re already gone, been gone since the moment you shipped out of London; a boy turned into a man turned into a memory. Fuck (pardon my swearing, but I think it’s warranted) I loved you back then. I would’ve been stupid not to. But you never loved me, Louis, did you? You always looked too long at that boy around the corner – always paid too much attention to the boys in school who knocked the little guys to the ground._

_I’m not saying anything, Louis, and I’m not trying to be offensive if I’ve read this wrong. I just don’t think you’re searching for a dame ... I don’t think I’m the one you could ever be happy with, no matter how hard I try to be._

_Politeness goes before honesty – yes, that is what they tell me, although you never quite grasped that, did you? You were always so unwavering in your righteousness, it made me go quite mad. You’re making me lose my goddamn mind, Tomlinson, and I hate you for it. God, just please make it back alive. Please never let me see you be censored again._

_Johannah is perfect, as always - working hard, slightly grey in the hair and bagged in the eyes, but still beautiful, as captivating as you are. Your pay check is more than enough, you know that, so you need to stop asking – you make more in a month than most men would in a year. Felicity has a lover now, though I probably shouldn’t be telling you this. He’s a good man, Louis, and he’s from a respectable family. I won’t say much more, I shall leave it for her to tell you when you get back, as I’ll leave reminding Ernest of you until the day you dock in London._

_You are coming back to me, aren’t you? To us, your family?_

_I suppose I can’t put this off any more, although I’ve been staring at this page for at least four hours now. That boy on 2 nd Street – the solicitor, Marcus – I’m betrothed to him now, Louis. I feel awful about it, but I have the sneaking suspicion you won’t shed a tear – you never loved me in that way (sorry, I have to keep writing it to assure myself that it is true). I don’t expect you to be pleased with me, or even to reply, but just know that you were, and always will be, my first love. Not that it counts for much. We’ve been friends since birth, it was inevitable. But now, I’m done letting you hurt me._

_With deepest affections,_

_Eleanor xx_

_P.S. You could never be a bad person, Louis. Not if you tried._

_Please stay safe. Don’t do anything stupid and heroic. Just come back to me in one piece – I don’t think I could take a solemn visit from a policeman, not if it was about you. Please come back to me._

“It’s Eleanor, isn’t it?”

Louis looked up, barely recognising that it was Liam who was considering him with concern lacing his features, leaning forward. The other men of the unit were watching him too, their rifles jiggling on their knees with each bump the Rover went over in the road. Harry was beside him as well, but he had been watching out the window with disdain resting upon his shoulders; the sights were nothing Louis hadn’t witnessed before, but for someone on his first mission, they were like hell on earth.

“Um...” Eleanor was right. He couldn’t bring himself to cry. It was probably just the dust affecting his eyes, that was it. Or maybe Harry had passed on hay fever to him. Could you do that? “Uh – um – yeah, it was – it was – Eleanor. She – “

“Gave you the old ‘Dear John’, did she?” Matthews muttered, shaking his head. “Cruel, women. Always told you they were cruel, didn’t I, Davey?”

“’Deed you did, Matt,” Davidson said, thumping him on the back. “My Gwendolyn, boy was she a heartbreaker. Only one who could tame her, me.”

“Are you okay, Lou?” Liam asked, leaning over his gun, eyebrows furrowed. He probably thought Louis was close to tears. He probably thought he’d be distracted for the rest of the day. He probably didn’t think that the only reason Louis was disappointed was because his childhood friend – his more than sister – was getting married, and he wouldn’t be there to see it.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Louis muttered hurriedly, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “No biggie, right? Better things on the horizon, and all that.”

Liam didn’t take his gaze off his friend for a good five minutes, not until Louis assured him that worse things had happened than him being dumped by somebody he hadn’t even fucked, and the other boy laughed and went back to going over the game plan with the rest of the unit.

A few moments later, a hand snaked its way into Louis’, stroking against his palm, long and lean and strong and safe. Louis smiled softly, and squeezed Harry’s hand.

“Better things on the horizon, eh?” Harry mumbled as they disembarked from the Rover, guns held in sweaty hands.

Louis’ mouth turned up at the corners. “Depends on your answer,” he replied. Harry raised an eyebrow, obviously confused.

“Harry, do you wanna be my dame?”

Harry grinned toothily, smile too big for his face.

“More than anything, Sarge,” he replied. “More than anything.”

*

“Those fucking poppies,” Louis said, rubbing his nose against the sleeve of his rough jacket. He was at the front of the group, as always, a new specifically tailored rifle in his hands. His eyes narrowed as he surveyed the area, the taste of pungent flowers on his tongue, washing away Harry from the night before. “Would knock you out, if they could move.”

“The earth’s fighting us,” Zayn muttered from behind them, cracking his knuckles as he marched through the crushed petals. “It doesn’t like this.”

“Well it’s tough for the earth,” Liam snapped, rather meanly, kneeling down onto the ground. “This is war.”

“So we’ve heard,” Zayn replied. Liam stood up and looked him straight in the eye. Louis expected him to repeat what Louis had been saying the entire goddamn time he’d been in Germany preparing for this day – this is war. We don’t get to choose what we do. But he didn’t.

“This is the end, I think,” Liam said. He was swallowing thickly, his Adam’s apple bobbing viciously. Zayn was watching him with breath-taking intensity. “Nobody’s gonna fight after this. How can they?”

“They fought after the first one, didn’t they?” Louis said. His eyes rested on Harry.

“Maybe they forgot what happened,” Harry suggested. “Maybe they forgot the trenches...”

Zayn shuddered. “How?” he asked in despair. “How could you forget this? How could you...”

“I’ll forget it,” Louis broke in. The unit turned to stare at him. “The second I’m out of this hell-hole I’m forgetting it all. My grandkids ask ‘bout the war, I’ll just say ‘poppies smell really fucking awful’.”

There was a light breeze blowing through the grasses now, erasing the tears that had appeared in the corners of the men’s eyes.

“Move out, men,” Louis ordered to break the silence, pointing towards the opposite end of the field. “Liam – Zayn – you two snake round, weed them out. Jimmy, Matthew, go up through the centre. Harry –” He paused “- Harry, you stay with me.”

As the men obeyed his commands, Harry leaned into Louis’ ear, his breath blowing against the nape of his neck.

“You won’t forget it,” he muttered lowly, almost dangerously.  “You can pretend you’re going to – hell, you can even pray. But we won’t forget. No one could forget.”

Louis let out a sigh. “If I could kiss you right now to shut you up, I would,” he replied.

“But you can’t,” Harry responded. He had a sad smile on his face that was worse than the poppies. Louis mirrored his expression.

“But I can’t,” he whispered.

*

It was a standard procedure until about halfway through. Louis crept through the bracken, shooting and dragging away bodies by the dozens, taking the Germans by surprise (there were probably other armies fighting against them too, but in his mind they were all Germans. It was easier that way). Harry was doing surprisingly well at following Louis’ instruction to, “Stay low, and don’t do anything stupid or heroic”, and Louis was trying desperately to avoid echoing Eleanor’s words because they sounded too much like common sense and blinding love.

“When do we go home?” Harry mumbled, whilst Louis wiped the blood stains off his forehead and desperately tried to lay another soldier to rest with respect, even though as he shot him he was thinking, ‘Another one down’.

“A day,” Louis responded, placing a poppy on the man’s chest to cover the bullet hole.

Harry shook his head furiously. “N- n – no,” he stuttered, and Louis paused briefly to consider his ... lover? “I mean _home_ home. With our mamas, and our sisters, and our friends. When do we get to go _home_ , Louis?”

A lump in his throat told him he was damn near close to crying himself, but he held it back, knowing that he had no right to do so.

“When the war’s over, baby,” Louis replied, and for a second, he pressed their lips together. Harry’s tasted like a thin sheen of sweat. “And it’ll be over soon.”

“What if it’s not?”

It was 1943, now. Four years this war had been going on. The last one ended four years in, but from what Louis heard, Edison thought the second would go on much longer. He didn’t tell Harry this, though he knew the boy was far smarter than he was and probably already knew the maths.

“It will be,” Louis said, with such a tone of finality that Harry didn’t dare contradict him. “And we’ll go home together, the two of us, and I’ll get us a nice little apartment in the city – you can make the dinner and I’ll go out to a boring job at the docks and we’ll never be back here again.”

“But Louis,” Harry stumbled. “You – you _love_ it out here. You can tell.”

Louis considered him. Harry smiled sadly.

“You look at a gun the same way you look at me.”

 _No, I don’t Harry,_ Louis thought to himself, but he didn’t dare say it out loud. _I don’t look at a rifle and imagine a ring glinting off its trigger. I don’t look at a rifle and wonder whether it likes the rain, or the winter, for I know that it doesn’t. I could write poems about guns, but I could write songs about you, and songs are much more beautiful._

He could’ve said all of that and so much more, but he didn’t get the chance. For the second he opened his mouth and a frail breath of a word slipped out, he heard the gunshot ricocheting through the air like a bomb.

He saw Harry’s eyebrows furrow inwards, his eyes crumpled into pain, his mouth open and gasping. He saw his boy’s long, thin fingers go immediately to his stomach, to the blood that pooled there, to the bullet lodged in him.

He saw the sniper drop to the ground with five bullets in his chest and another in his head, and he heard the chug of his own rifle as it ran out of ammunition.

Liam was running towards him, now, screaming something about blood loss and war and ‘people are dying’ and his name, he thinks, he thinks Liam was saying his name but he can’t be quite sure because he’s buried in Harry now, pressing his head into his chest and begging, pounding at the ground, begging for the Lord to ‘bring him back’ and ‘not now not ever’ and ‘I loved him’.

His boy starts being dragged back towards the Rover where he knows one of the nurses was camping out and she is ready with an ice pack although that won’t do much for him now and she’s talking about lead poisoning from the bullet and how long he’s got left and Louis is ugly crying now, tears streaming down his face and into his mouth, as salty as the sea. He wonders if he’s taking the last of Harry’s breaths away by kissing him.

“You’re gonna be just like Steve,” Louis whispered harshly as Harry gripped onto his shoulder with snow white fingertips and bloodshot eyes. “You’re gonna heal up, and you’re gonna get better, and you’re gonna be real good after this, okay? Okay, Harry? You’re gonna – you’re gonna get – get better now, just you stay with me.”

The Rover smells like nothing but blood and those goddamn poppies and Liam’s calling for Louis to come out and help them because goddamnit, Lou everybody needs you out there but Harry needs him here, Harry needs him right here helping put pressure on the wound and keep the sparkle in his eyes from disappearing.

They’re moving now, and Louis has run out of tears and Harry is running out of air and he keeps stroking Louis’ hair and telling him everything will be okay but it’s ironic because it should be Louis doing this to him, helping him through it but Harry is the only fucking thing he’s got left, the only child left that he loves and the only boy left that he ever wants to kiss and marry if that’s ever possible. He’s the only one.

“We have to take him now,” the nurse yells over the buzz of a helicopter and they’re airlifting him up to the next hospital and Louis knows this is what happens, this is what happens if the British die or if they get shot because they want to be seen giving them a chance even if it’s hopeless. But he doesn’t want to know this anymore, doesn’t want this drug, he wants to get sober and he never wants to see another rifle again even if killing is the only thing he’s good at and he just wants Harry really, and he really really doesn’t want to let go.

Harry’s ripped from his arms and he doesn’t even have the rosiness in his cheeks to be able to say goodbye or I love you or I’m going to be okay, and Louis knows that even if he did it would be a lie anyways. And the nurse is stroking his back and saying he is the bravest man she has ever met and they must’ve been really close because she’s only seen a few friends kissing before and he kind of wants to punch her in the nose but he doesn’t because he’s numb.

All encompassing, everywhere. He can feel everything and nothing at the same time. That night, as Edison gives a speech on strength and bravery and courage and how that one skinny guy was worth ten of the big guys, Louis wants nothing more than to throw up. He wants nothing more than to bring up all the times they doubted him, all the times they never believed in him, and now they have the audacity to stand up there and give a speech about his worth.

But then, everybody is a hero in death. Louis would even be one, if he managed to finally reach the other side. (He had a lucky escape, some men said, for if the bullet had’ve been two inches to the right it would’ve gone straight past Harry and hit him instead and he does punch them in the nose, this time.)

“Is he...” he asked two days later, when Liam entered the bedroom he used to share with his boy. He had a sad look on his face and a stained red army jacket hanging off his arm.

Liam pursed his lips. Louis felt like breaking down.

“Haven’t got word yet,” Liam replied, setting down the jacket on the bed beside Louis. The blood – Harry’s blood – had dried, and was cracking like the earth before a quake. “General Eisenhower’s become the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. Ordered American Marines to Cape Gloucester. Things are happening, Louis, and they’re...”

“More important than a seventeen year old boy, I got it,” Louis snapped, disdain lacing his syllables. He didn’t think he could be judged for this – he’d spent hours every day looking over the post in the barracks, searching for some kind of word. The nurses hadn’t allowed him to go back into the field – they said he had some kind of stress disorder, said Harry had been his breaking point.  “The whole damn war’s been my breaking point,” he had snarled at them. They didn’t listen, just nodded sympathetically. Irritatingly.

Liam nodded. “Sad but true, bud,” he whispered. “They found his coat in the Rover. Were gonna throw it out, they were, or give it to some poor sonofabitch, but I said it should go to you, considering how close the two of you were and all.”

Louis took the fabric in his hands. Underneath the death, it still smelt a bit like Harry; clean and home. “Thanks Liam,” he said, and he even managed to give him a hug, the first proper hug the two had shared. “You’re alright, after all.”

Liam laughed. “Well I think a pig just flew by on a unicorn!”

A punch in the shoulder and he quickly sobered up. “I better get going,” Liam said. “You should check the pockets of the coat, too. I haven’t read them, but they were to his friend back home. Thought you might want to...”

When Liam said something like ‘I haven’t read them’ you could count on the fact that he usually meant the complete opposite. This time, however – perhaps it was the smell of Harry lingering in his nose – Louis didn’t feel frustration. He smiled at his friend and reached into the pocket of the coat as he left.

There were crumpled up letters, written on napkins and newspapers and everything else Harry could find, and they were dated way back to the first day he arrived in the middle of summer to now, in winter. Louis wondered why he never sent them.

The sergeant settled back onto his bed and began the task of deciphering Harry’s scrawly cursive. The letters; they’re beautiful and sad and covered in blood, and they smell like gunpowder. Louis tries not to cry whilst he’s reading, for it would smudge the ink.

_Dear Niall,_

_War isn’t how I imagined it, Ni, nothing at all. I knew it wouldn’t be sunshine and roses, knew nothing I participated in could be, but I didn’t expect the barracks to reek so potently of death. Not that they are unclean; in fact, the girls do an amazing job of disinfecting everywhere and keeping the sheets in nurses’ corners, but you can see dead people everywhere, Ni, I’m not even joking. The pictures on the walls, the medals hanging off old uniforms, the smiles on other men’s faces – they all show who has been lost out here, and there’s been a lot of people lost._

_I thought nothing could be worse than arguing with you, or with my sister Gemma, or those dames back in London (do you remember that time in Welling Bar- was it Louisa? – when I accidentally kissed another girl who looked exactly the same but with redder lips and she ended up throwing a bottle at my head? Those were the days) but I have never been more wrong, bud, I’ve never been more wrong._

_They told us it would be beautiful. They told us it would be the war to end all wars, that it would be tragically heroic and gorgeous in the worst possible way._

_Little Jonny from the backstreets – you’ll remember him, for he dated your cousin Anne for a bit – he died last week. Shot right in the head, at sixteen years old. He was younger than the both of us, Niall, and I cry every time I think of him. I hope you won’t make fun of me for being weak, but this is a war, you see, and I’m not built for this, honestly. Sarge keeps telling me so (the mean one, the one I’m not allowed to say the name of because I don’t want us to be censored)._

_There’s another sergeant though, Niall, and he is really quite something. Takes my breath away every time I see him. He’s got these blue eyes that stare right through you, and I know he’s done horrible things but he doesn’t look evil like I thought the soldiers would. He looks kind, like I could tell him anything and he would believe it. I’m tending to trust him, and his legs that curve in just the right places and his ass..._

_I shouldn’t be talking in this way Niall, and you know that, but you also know about me, don’t you? About the whole thing with the boys and the girls and the liking both? I used to think maybe it was just a phase, maybe I would grow out of it, maybe I was trying only to drift over the border of sin, but now I know that, with Louis... I’d sin my way straight to hell and skip in the front doors if it meant I could touch him just one time._

Louis inhaled sharply, and he flicked over to the next letter with such force that he ripped it almost straight in half. He spent the next few minutes trying to piece it together, and then another few realising that it wasn’t a letter at all; it was a poem.

_“I want to change the world” she said, one day, on the bridge_

_Whilst he looked at her with careful optimism and biting love_

_She would do it, he knew – she often tore his world apart_

_With one meaningless touch or careless caress that_

_Lingered on his skin along with the ink of the draft card_

_The devil that weighed down so heavily in his pocket_

_Dragging him down like a stone in the ocean, an anchor_

_Attaching him to the afterlife, promising death in its_

_Tantalising whispers and lying mantras of war._

_They wouldn’t win. Nobody would win_

_But they wouldn’t see that until the world had lost a_

_Generation_

_And all his old school mates were lying in the ground_

_Upon which they used to play football_

_After a hard day’s arithmetic whilst he walked the streets_

_With her entwined in his fingers, too loosely to be comfortable_

_Too tightly to mean anything._

_He skipped a stone upon the water with his arm_

_The one that had survived even if his spirit had not_

_And he pretended not to notice how she looked at him now_

_With careful optimism, no careless caresses_

_Just long stares that should rattle him from the inside out_

_And would’ve, a year from then_

_Before he went to the frontlines_

_And shot a man in between the eyes_

_\- spilt his blood over poppy fields -_

_Jumped in front of a bomb to end it all and failing_

_Losing only the arm he used to skip stones with._

_His ribs cut through pale skin hidden from sunlight_

_Visible through any shirt he wore_

_And she tried to avert her eyes but she wasn’t_

_A bad person_

_So she stayed._

_He had told her, when they were twelve_

_About how no snowflake was the same because_

_They all had different journeys._

_He wished his was over now_

_He wished his bruise-marred face would crumple inwards_

_Would join the un-dead army of the jeering soldiers_

_And then maybe he’d be able to go to back_

_To screaming at her across a park_

_Because she found a packet of cigarettes in his pocket_

_And she didn’t want him to die._

_You swore you wouldn’t leave me, she had yelled_

_Maybe not everything is about you, he responded_

_She always cried now. It burnt like how his death should have_

_When she kissed him, she tasted of metal._

That night, Louis lay in bed rereading and rereading Harry’s rendition of their first kiss, learning his poetry off by heart, reciting it under his breath like a chorus prayer, hoping that maybe, somewhere, someone was listening, someone who could bring Harry back to him in the way they both craved.

*

**_September 4, 1945._ **

Harry never returned to the barracks of war, never held another rifle in his hands, never saw another German fall to his knees, clasping his chest and gasping in agony. Harry never had to return to grenades and bombs and poppy fields, never had to contend with the tight suits and black ties of Liam’s funeral, never had to see Louis be pulled back from the grave because he was determined to throw himself in too, gone quite mad with the loss.

Sergeant Liam James Payne served a good war, Edison said in his eulogy, but Louis couldn’t help but think this wasn’t a good war; it was twisted, and it was sick, and it was evil – started and ended in September, the month which children dreaded for a different reason now than school.

But now, it was over, all over. Two days ago, the soldiers had been stopped in their tracks as they lined up their shots, stopped by a messenger declaring Germany’s surrender. And Louis had fallen to the ground and praised the Lord that he’d never need to see another bomb go off like the one that had taken his best friend’s life.

He was on a boat back to London, decorated in a uniform with medals displaying his many honours, taking up too much room on his chest. His throat was thick with smoke and his packet of cigarettes was long smoked through, and he was watching the soldiers run up to their children and sisters and wives and greet them with kisses and enthusiastic hugs. The world over was kissing at that moment, and that was when he saw him.

Standing, with a blazer hanging over his shoulder held up by a long finger and large brown work boots on his feet, was a boy with dimples as deep as a valley, and a smile as bright as any star at night.

Louis grinned, feeling an overwhelming sense of relief tsunami through his body.

He tore down the deck, stampeded down the gangplank and speeded across the pier, finally landing with a _thump_ against his boy’s upper body. Harry was laughing – laughing – and pulling him back into a building where nobody could see them hidden in the shadows.

Their lips locked together fiercely, and Harry tasted like his mother’s famous cake. His hands were strong and warm against Louis’ back and his fingers were digging into his skin a bit too insistently for such public places.

Louis was smiling, grinning, Cheshire-ing away, not able to stop himself, and when they broke apart to take a breath, he looked up at his boy.

“It’s over,” he said, eyes filling up. Harry nodded, pressing a chaste kiss to the end of Louis’ nose. “Hitler?”

“Dead,” Harry responded darkly. “Suicide.”

“The bastard,” Louis muttered, not that it really mattered. What mattered was that a peace treaty had been signed, people the world over were breathing a sigh of relief, and Harry was in front of him, alive and achingly well. “You never wrote me. I thought you were dead.”

“I wanted to,” Harry promised, settling his hands against the expanse of Louis’ hips. “But they wouldn’t let me write in the hospital. Not enough supplies or something, they said. And besides...”

He paused, capturing Louis’ lips again.

“The war would’ve been over by the time it got to you.”

“Never have sweeter words been spoken,” Louis declared. “Can I ask you a question, Styles?”

“Of course, Tomlinson.”

“Have you met my mother? Because you taste awfully like her cake.”

Harry grinned. “As a matter of a fact, I have. She was a lovely woman, really – let me stay at her place and everything when I was getting better, took in Niall too, once I mentioned I was friends with you.”

“Oh, so we’re just friends now, eh?” Louis teased, poking Harry in the side. They were too far apart now, but it was getting brighter and the crowds were breaking apart, so it was too dangerous to be any closer. “Thought from the way you kissed me you _loved_ me or something...”

“Well, I do,” Harry said, suddenly serious. “Love you, I mean.”

“That’s good, cause I love you as well.”

“We’re gonna get married some day, Lou, I promise.” Another hasty kiss on the forehead, because that much could be passed off as friendly. Louis pursed his lips. He didn’t want to say, ‘Not if the world has anything to say about it’ because maybe, in some life, they would be able to be together, openly, without the fear of being stoned. Until then, he was okay just hiding, being with Harry, loving him secretly and with little glances only they understood.

“How many died?” Louis asked. Harry furrowed his eyebrows at the sudden question, but he answered without much hesitation.

“60 million,” he replied. “40 of those civilians, 20 soldiers.”

Louis shook his head. “That’s not right,” he mumbled. “20 million Liams...”

“40 million Charlottes, and Felicitys, and Johannahs,” Harry muttered. “But we can’t focus on that. It’s all over now. We can forget all about it, ‘part from the damn poppies, right?”

Little did Louis know was that, in the years following this statement, he would show up to many memorials and share the story of him and Harry, of Liam and Edison, of Zayn and Eleanor. And on his chest, he would wear one of those poppies.

It would end up meaning a hell of a lot more to him than just the damn smell.

*

_I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its stupidity –_ **Dwight D. Eisenhower**

_All’s fair in love and war –_ **American proverb**

**Author's Note:**

> Basically this is what I spend my time doing when I should be revising for my history exam because what's better than our favourite couple thrown into horrible situations?  
> I hope you all liked this, I wrote it really quickly in two days but I was just really inspired! Please leave kudos and comments, they mean so much! xx  
> I hope to post more oneshots during the Christmas break, so keep an eye on my account. Love you all! - L


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